New laws to protect home address

New laws have come into effect (from 26 April 2018) to help tackle the problem of identity fraud and personal harm for company directors. The new laws, which were introduced into parliament on 22 February 2018, allow company directors and others such as secretaries, people with significant control (PSC) and LLP members, to remove their personal addresses from the UK’s official company register on Companies House.

Prior to the introduction of this law it was only possible for a director to ask for their personal address to be hidden from personal view if they could demonstrate that they were at a serious personal risk of violence or intimidation.

Under the new law this protection is much easier to obtain. Company directors and others will still be required to provide an alternative correspondence address if they are appointed to a live company. If they are no longer appointed to a company, then an alternative address is not required and only the first half of their postcode will be made available to the public.

Planning note

There is a charge of £55 per document where a director wants to suppress their home address. The option is not available if the home address is the same as the company’s registered office address. This change has been prompted by research that showed company directors were twice as likely to be the victims of identity fraud as other members of the public partly due to the fact that their home address was publicly available.

Please call if you would like to ring-fence your persoanl address using this scheme.